|
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
132
Mixed:
19
Negative:
1
|
Critic Reviews
The IndependentJul 17, 2023
RogerEbert.comJun 21, 2023
Season 2 Review:
This season of “The Bear” is less rough around the edges. It relies on glossier, more elaborate visual statements—twirling cameras, canted angles, and vaster locales—along with a jukebox soundtrack of radio hits and a string of surprising cameos propelled by big star power.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The ensemble chemistry gels quickly on “The Bear,” as the frenzied atmosphere draws unedited thoughts and feelings out of the staffers. Once they start to recognize Carmy’s brilliance, and let go of his late brother’s disorganized ways, their banter and mutual support is even sweeter.
Read full review
Jun 21, 2022
Season 1 Review:
"The Bear" was created by Christopher Storer and has the winning menu item of people doing things well. Original Beef is a mess when Carmen gets there, but the cooking is lovely to watch once he gets things on track. What's even lovelier is the way Carmen's imposition of elevated standards changes the staff.
Read full review
Jul 15, 2024
Season 3 Review:
By the end, many of the questions of season two remain, particularly the types that one might expect a TV dramedy to rush to answer: the resolution of ongoing conflicts and the will-they-won’t-they of a romance. In the end, though, it hardly matters, as Storer has managed to keep the center of interest away from such plot-driven considerations.
Read full review
IndieWireJun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
Subtle episodic arcs and set-ups are enough to hold the season together, even if its overall inertia doesn’t really test those ties. There’s a time to let it rip and a time to let it be. “The Bear” Season 3 doesn’t quite strike the right balance (like the previous season did), but it serves up enough suitable side dishes to satiate diners until things really get cooking again.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
The 10 episodes that dropped late Wednesday pretty much say there's nothing to worry about here. In fact, a few of these do gently temporize, and at least one treads water, but there are also four which are flat-out great (more on those in a bit). A pleasure as always if hardly perfect, this balance seems about right for a series that explores the gulf separating craftsmanship from genuine artistry, and whether perfection can bridge it.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
The level of excellence established by the first two episodes and the one featuring Tina isn’t quite sustained all season long. But what emerges from the noise is a deeper, more convincing feeling of family throughout the ensemble as Carmy has to confront the light and dark influences that have made him who he is.
Read full review
Jun 28, 2023
Season 2 Review:
What makes the sometimes nerve-wracking, often funny, and meticulously constructed second season of The Bear much more than clever propaganda for Chicago fine dining is the core observation realized in Carmy’s character that our successes and our hindrances often share a source: our infuriatingly complex selves.
Read full review
Jun 13, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Despite its eight-episode first season falling frustratingly into the tropes of the volatile, violent kitchen and the Genius Chef tasked with keeping it all together, The Bear manages to elevate its product with some strong performances and a deep well of relatable anguish in its characters.
Read full review
Jun 26, 2025
Season 4 Review:
The show still lacks the balance its first two seasons were able to find, and by now, some of its moves have become familiar enough to lose their sheen of novelty. But compared to its predecessor, this season is the better, more appealing, and more confident version of The Bear.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
Veracity is tempered by the show’s appetite for contrivance. Barnburner monologues give way to dialogue so repetitive it might as well be a Meisner exercise.. .... The show’s highs remain incredibly, dazzlingly high, and its ability to overwhelm you is thrilling — it’s the front car of the roller coaster for 10 episodes.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
In many ways, The Bear’s latest season is the same circus of agita and the beauty of human connection it has always been. .... But The Bear, like the in-show restaurant, is clearly undergoing a transformation, one that may prove that the fans who were perplexed by the show’s inclusion in the comedy awards categories were right. And it’s not an entirely successful transformation.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
“Tomorrow” itself is an odd dish, combining ingredients that don’t quite go together. Though it sometimes feels like a dreamy (and nightmarish) journey through Carmy’s psyche, it often lands with all the artfulness of a clip show, making what should be a stage-setting season premiere feel like a filler episode. Maybe Storer could stand to take his own advice: subtract.
Read full review
IndieWireJun 16, 2022
Season 1 Review:
While “The Bear” may not be one of the best shows in the world, its own act of service is appreciated. Storer and Calo invite us into a fast-paced, high-risk world, hoping to entertain us; hoping we can empathize with those living in it; hoping their gesture is more than just a piece of filler in TV’s content machine. And it is, for those who enjoy a little heat.
Read full review
Sep 5, 2025
Season 4 Review:
It’s as confident and singular in its artistic vision as ever. But even though more is happening than there was in Season 3, it’s not quite enough to give the show a shape. Its overemphasis on character and vibe at the expense of narrative momentum leaves it repetitive and flabby. Like the Chicago Tribune’s mixed restaurant review says, it’s missing some Bear necessities — namely, a compelling enough plot.
Read full review
The IndependentJun 26, 2025
Season 4 Review:
Like its protagonist, The Bear feels trapped in a loop of its own creation. Will the restaurant succeed? Will Sydney be satisfied? Will Carmy find peace? To unequivocally answer any of those questions would denude the menu of its most appetising morsels, and so The Bear keeps on whetting our appetites, putting only the most delicate amusement in its amuse-bouche.
Read full review
Jun 25, 2025
Season 4 Review:
OG fans of The Bear know its capacity for greatness, so when scenes become too self-indulgent and overextended bits read like forced comedic relief (cc: the Faks), the series feels tonally uneven. Even if The Bear still isn’t cooking like it once was, to ignore the show’s positive attributes would be disingenuous.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
At times, the absence of a uniting goal allows Storer and co-showrunner Joanna Calo to continue adding texture to the monotony of restaurant life. .... But not all detours this season are as effective, and without a fixed destination, the main narrative itself can get bogged down with repetition and stunt casting before the season ends with most storylines unresolved.
Read full review
The PlaylistJun 28, 2024
Season 3 Review:
“The Bear” is still a watchable show, thanks to the cast, but season three is a disappointment nonetheless. Allen White, Edebiri, and Moss-Bachrach are highly engaging, and the way Matty Matheson’s Neil Fak character steps up is interesting too, but the writing generally underserves them all in a filler, spinning-its-wheels season that feels like a placeholder waiting for season four.
Read full review
Jun 26, 2025
Jun 26, 2025
Season 4 Review:
Growth is in short supply on The Bear, save for a few effective moments when a character actually makes a decision—to move on, to forgive, to love, whatever. Maybe that slowness is indeed how people process things in real life, but it makes for fatally inert television.
Read full review
The TelegraphJun 26, 2025
Season 4 Review:
Every exchange is a heart-to-heart, every character is constantly trying to impart something meaningful, everyone says what is on their mind. It’s as if they are in a massive immersive therapy session. As such, the script is too often dragged down into a steaming swamp of triteness. Some of it is downright guff.
Read full review
Jun 26, 2025Jun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
The Bear is loaded with generic conversations about Big Things and plaintive needle drops to the point of self-parody. Only toward the very end of a ten-episode season do we see some true processing of Carmy’s tortured professional psyche—it’s appreciated, but arrives too late.
Read full review
ColliderJun 27, 2024
Season 3 Review:
This bouncing between calm and disorder should feel familiar, but unlike Season 1 and 2, Season 3 feels painfully inconsistent. There is no actual harmony between these moments, and as the show pitter-patters its way through an ocean of plotlines, the season is rendered rudderless, leading to no clear overall arc.
Read full review
Jul 3, 2024
Season 3 Review:
A bafflingly bad batch of episodes that gravely misjudge the series’ appeal. .... The new season suffers from both a surfeit of ideas and a lack of vision, relegating beloved relationships to the background while larding the show with characters and story lines that fail to compel. .... “The Bear” has lost the plot—even the food looks unappetizing this season.
Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score